“Forgetting lessons of our common past may result in recurring these horrible tragedies, and therefore we should protect the truth about World War II events, defend the feat, dignity and a good name of those still alive and those who perished,” he said in an address to the audience of a memorial requiem evening dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Soviet Red Army’s liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz and the International Day of Remembrance for Holocaust Victims that the whole world will mark on January 27.

The Holocaust, a WWII massacre of Jews, is one of most tragic and shameful pages in the humankind history. In these years, millions of innocent people, who were gunned down, tortured to death and died of famine and diseases, fell victims of Nazism. “It was the Soviet Red Army that saved from extermination not only Jewish, but also other nations in Europe and the world, putting an end to these outrages and merciless barbarism,” Putin recalled.

“We should understand clearly that any attempts to re-write history, review a contribution our country has made to the Great Victory, actually means justification of Nazi crimes, paving the way for a revival of this deadly ideology,” he noted.